TEAM CHEVY ADVANCE
Kansas Speedway
April 18-19, 2026
NASCAR will make its first appearance in the Midwest this weekend as the 1.5-mile oval of Kansas Speedway will play host for a Cup and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series doubleheader event.
With yet another powerhouse performance at Bristol Motor Speedway under his belt, Kyle Larson and the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team is hungrier than ever to get back to victory lane. With momentum on his side, the reigning champion heads back to the heartland as the event’s defending winner. JR Motorsports is well on its way towards the opportunity for another record season with Connor Zilisch’s return to the organization at “The Last Great Colosseum” ending with a trip to victory lane – giving the team its sixth win in the series’ nine-race stretch. The Chevrolet organization is credited with the manufacturer’s most recent O’Reilly Auto Parts Series win at the Kansas-based venue (2022). Their four-car lineup will see Cup Series regular, William Byron, make his return to the seat of the No. 88 Chevrolet entry.
ON THE HORIZON OF A RECORD-SETTING STREAK
One year ago, it was Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson that drove a near-dominate race at Kansas Speedway – sitting on the pole, sweeping the stages and leading 221 of 267 laps en route to his second consecutive victory in the track’s spring race. When the series returned to Kansas in the fall, Chase Elliott completed the Chevrolet season sweep at the track when he drove from eighth to first during an overtime restart to take the victory and an automatic berth into the Round of Eight. The victory not only extended Chevrolet’s series-leading record to 17 all-time wins at Kansas, but also boosted the Bowtie brand to a streak of four-straight to tie the track’s record for the longest win streak by a single manufacturer in NASCAR’s top division.
Kyle Larson
No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Kansas Speedway – May 11, 2025
Chase Elliott
No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Kansas Speedway – Sept. 28, 2025
HENDRICK’S HEARTLAND HISTORY
Hendrick Motorsports is the only organization to own a double-digit win record in NASCAR’s top division at Kansas Speedway, with Chase Elliott’s victory last fall marking their 11th all-time triumph at the track. The organization’s winning ways date back to the series’ inaugural visit to the Kansas-based oval in 2001 when career Chevrolet driver, Jeff Gordon, put the famed No. 24 entry in victory lane – his first of three wins at the track. Gordon is one of four drivers who have earned a victory under the Hendrick Motorsports banner at the track, joining the likes of Jimmie Johnson (three wins) and the organization’s current drivers, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott, who own two wins each. Along with their wins, Larson and Elliott have each earned other notable leading feats among the series’ active drivers at the track, including Larson’s most laps led of 925 and Elliott’s best average finish of 9.9.
STACKING STAGE POINTS
Despite falling just short of his return to victory lane, yet another strong run by Kyle Larson and the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team at Bristol Motor Speedway paid great dividends in the points standings. The Elk Grove, California, native swept the stages before bringing home a third-place finish – ultimately netting a 54-point day, which was the second-highest of the field. The effort was enough to propel the reigning champion up four positions in the standings to sixth as he heads to the site of his most recent triumph. For the Cliff Daniels-led team, collecting stage points has been their forte throughout the early-season run. Within the first eight races, Larson has accumulated 72 stage points – the second-highest of the series.
During Larson’s tenure at Hendrick Motorsports, his resume at Kansas Speedway is nothing short of impressive. In 10 career starts, the driver has accumulated three wins (second-most of the series’ active drivers), six top-fives and eight top-10s. Qualifying has also been a strong suit for the No. 5 team, owning two pole wins and seven top-five starting positions. From a points perspective, Larson’s earned points in both stages in six events, with the 2025 season seeing him finish no worse than third in each stage, including a sweep of the stages in the spring race.
ALLGAIER ADDS TO SEASON-LEADING ACCOLADES
A consistent figure within the top-five for much of the race yet again, Justin Allgaier ultimately brought home a fourth-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway – extending his top-five streak to six-straight. Allgaier heads to the Midwest with a 130-point lead, an effort largely due to his monstrous stage performances throughout the season. Allgaier continues to be the only driver to have earned points in every stage thus far this season, adding another pair of top-five stage finishes last weekend. The veteran driver’s other early-season accolades include a series-best three wins, seven top-fives and eight top-10s.
JR MOTORSPORTS WITH EARLY STRIDES TOWARDS ANOTHER RECORD SEASON
With a record-setting campaign in the rearview mirror, JR Motorsports came into the 2026 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season with an extra boost of momentum. The Chevrolet organization has quickly turned that momentum into results, already collecting six wins in the first nine races of the season. That pace puts JR Motorsports well on its way towards the opportunity to top its 2025 run, which saw the organization earn 12 of its 17 victories within the first 21 races of the season. When it comes to the early outlook on the true title contenders, JR Motorsports has a strong representation – led by the organization’s veteran driver, Justin Allgaier, who continues to hold a triple-digit lead in the points standings. His teammates, Carson Kvapil and Sammy Smith, have also resided comfortably in the top-10 of the standings throughout much of the early-season stretch – heading to the heartland ranked fifth and seventh, respectively.
ECKES PROVING TO BE A TITLE CONTENDER
A trip to Bristol Motor Speedway was exactly what Christian Eckes and the No. 91 McAnally-Hilgemann Racing Chevrolet team needed to get back into the championship title hunt. The Middletown, New York, native started the day by turning in his season-best qualifying effort of second. Eckes went on to score a stage win, a race-high 132 laps led and his third top-five finish of the season. A performance that culminated into a race-high 48-point day, Eckes moved up to fifth in the standings and just 17-points behind the leader as the series heads into a pair of off-weekends.
BOWTIE BULLETS:
· Active Chevrolet drivers with a NASCAR Cup Series win at Kansas Speedway:
Kyle Larson – three wins (2025, 2024, 2021)
Chase Elliott – two wins (2025, 2018)
Kyle Busch – two wins (2021, 2016)
Ross Chastain – one win (2024)
· In 40 NASCAR Cup Series races at Kansas Speedway, Chevrolet leads all manufacturers with 17 victories – including both the series’ inaugural race (Jeff Gordon – Sept. 2021) and the most recent race (Chase Elliott – Sept. 2025).
· With seven-straight victories to start the 2026 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season, Chevrolet set the record for the longest season-opening streak by a single manufacturer in the division’s history.
· In 152 points-paying races in the NASCAR Cup Series Next Gen era, Chevrolet leads all manufacturers with 68 victories – a winning percentage of 44.7%.
· Chevrolet is coming off its 29th all-time sweep of the NASCAR Cup Series championship titles – capturing its 34th driver championship and 44th, and fifth consecutive, manufacturer championship in 2025.
· With its 44 NASCAR Cup Series manufacturer championships, 34 NASCAR Cup Series driver championships, and 882 all-time NASCAR Cup Series wins, Chevrolet continues to hold the title as the winningest brand in NASCAR Cup Series history.
TUNE-IN:
NASCAR Cup Series
AdventHealth 400
Sunday, Apr. 19, at 2 p.m. ET
FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series
Kansas Lottery 300
Saturday, Apr. 18, at 7 p.m. ET
CW, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90
QUOTABLE QUOTES:
Austin Dillon, No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
How unique is Kansas Speedway compared to some of the other 1.5-mile tracks, and how will you attack the track this weekend?
“Kansas Speedway has its own personality for sure. Even though it’s a mile-and-a-half like some other tracks, the surface has aged a bit, so you get a lot of tire fall-off and have to manage your run. It’s wide, which gives you options—up by the wall or down on the bottom—so you can move around depending on how your car’s handling. This weekend, we’ll focus on getting the balance right early in the run and try to keep the speed over the long haul. If we can do that, I think we’ll be in good shape.”
Daniel Suarez, No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet
As you head into Kansas this weekend, what’s your outlook for the race?
“I really enjoy racing at Kansas. It’s a great track with multiple grooves, which gives you a lot of options during a run. You can run the bottom, middle, or top depending on how the car is handling. I’ve been watching the weather for qualifying and there’s a chance of rain. If that happens and qualifying gets washed out, we’d line up 13th for the race. Track position is important at Kansas, so that wouldn’t be a bad place to start.”
Kyle Busch, No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
What makes Kansas unique?
“Kansas is a cool track. It’s a mile-and-a-half racetrack that lends itself to two, three and even four-wide racing with progressive banking. You can race anywhere, high or low and set up moves where you slide up in front of a guy and mess up his air. Aerodynamics play a big role with how fast we’re entering the corners, so there’s a lot of reliance on aerodynamic grip. You’ve got to get out front in clean air to get to victory lane.”
AJ Allmendinger, No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet
“Kansas is definitely a racetrack that was difficult for us last year. But in the past, there we’ve had at least decent competitive speed. I feel like after the off week and the good run we had at Bristol, we’re learning as a race team of what we need. At least Bristol was a confidence booster. We’re taking small victories and we had speed there all weekend.
It’s about having solid weekends and keep learning whether it’s a good or bad weekend. We’re doing a good job of that. I’m happy with some of the progress we made at Bristol. Kansas is a racetrack that you have to kind of run the fence most of the time. It might be cooler weather there, so, maybe you can kind of change lines around. Even though it’s been a difficult racetrack for us, we’re going there with a good mindset. We’ll have a decent qualifying order, which will help. Hopefully, we can go out and have a good practice like we did at Bristol and be close. I think that’s the most important thing for us is having a good practice and when we do that, we’re able to not make a lot of changes going into the race.”
Cole Custer, No. 41 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet
“I’m looking forward to Kansas. It’s going to be cool out, we are all going to be wide open, really fast around the track the whole weekend. It’s a really fun track, you can run all over the place, but it will be even more fun with how much throttle we are carrying around it. Our HaasTooling.com Chevy is going to be wide open and a lot of fun!”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47 Hyak Motorsports Chevrolet
“Kansas is always a fun place to race because you can move around and search for speed. We’ve had some good runs there over the years, and hopefully we can keep that going this weekend. It’s great to have Pylon Aviation back on the No. 47 car. They’ve been a great partner for our team, and we’re looking forward to putting together a strong weekend for them.”
Alex Bowman, No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
“Kansas (Speedway) is one of my favorite tracks and one I always look forward to. It’s no secret it’s been a tough start to the season for our No. 48 team. With that, it’s hard to say that we could go win, but we are typically so good that we really could. We’ve got a lot of work to do but Kansas is a good place for us to get things turned around.”
Cody Ware, No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Chevrolet
“Kansas is a mile-and-a-half track that’s in great condition. No bumps, no wear, you can pretty much run that track from top to bottom. If you want to run the apron, you can run the apron. If you want to run the wall, you can run the wall. And you can run any combination of lanes in between. You’re not having to fight through bumps. You’re not dealing with a rough track surface. It’s really just a very good, solid, smooth, clean racetrack, which makes it easier to extract the car’s full potential. I feel like everyone typically unloads really, really well at Kansas. Because the track allows you to move around, you can find a line that suits you and your racecar the best. You can get your car 99 percent there with where you want it to be.”
Michael McDowell, No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet
What makes Kansas different from the other traditional mile-and-a-halves?
“I think a big part of it is that Kansas is one of the easiest tracks to get multiple lanes going right away. Even on the first lap of practice, you can run the top, where at places like Charlotte (Motor Speedway), Texas, or other 1.5-mile tracks, you really have to build up to that. Kansas has multiple lanes and grooves, and everything comes together fairly early in a run, which usually leads to a pretty good race because you’re able to move around. It’s always been a great track, and everyone eventually migrates toward the wall, so it gets intense. The track changes a lot throughout the weekend. It typically starts out really fast, then by race time it drops off, forcing you to slide more and search for grip. It’s been a strong track for us in the past, but it can be tough to hit it just right. The speed we’ve shown at tracks like Vegas and Texas last year gives us a solid baseline, so I feel good with what we have and hopefully we can maximize our day in Kansas.”
Carson Hocevar, No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet
What stands out about Kansas?
“It is a fun track. You can move around a lot for sure, but the top lane has by far been the fastest the last couple years, especially when it’s really warm. You want to get as close to the wall as you can without putting yourself in the fence, just like at Darlington and Homestead. The track has gotten abrasive, so managing your tires is important. Then to top it all off, the restarts are crazy with the runs you can build and the ability to run three wide through the corner.
“I really enjoy the mile-and-a-half tracks, and we have shown we can run up front at the intermediates over the past year. We’ve shown speed the last few weeks, and I know we can continue that this week.”
Connor Zilisch, No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet
What do you expect this weekend at Kansas Speedway?
“I’m excited for Kansas this weekend. I’ve been there a few times. I love Kansas and it’s one of my favorite racetracks, just being able to move around so much and run so many different lanes. I’m always excited to go back there. I finished second there in the O’Reilly race last year. Kansas has always been pretty good to me. I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully we can go out and get ourselves a win and check that box. We will certainly do our best in our Choice Privileges Chevrolet.”
Where is your favorite lane on the racetrack at Kansas? Do you like to run up against the wall?
“I feel like you have to run up high but there are a lot of different ways to slice it at Kansas. You can run down at the bottom, you can top seam, you can run against the fence. There are a lot of ways to do it but I’m sure at some point I’ll be up there running the fence.”
The wind can be a big factor at Kansas. Is that sensitive to the race car?
“It can change things a little bit but it’s not too crazy. If the wind is really gusting you can have some moments because of it, but it’s really got to be blowing hard to make a big change to what you’re feeling inside the race car.”
Shane van Gisbergen, No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet
A 10th-place finish last year at Kansas, your best oval finish of the 2025 season. Any particular reason you did better there than other places? Do you enjoy racing at Kansas?
“I guess it was later in the year. We were just getting better and better. I think we had some races where we had better speed than that, but I didn’t get it right or we got crashed out or something. I felt like we were getting toward the top 10 more often than not at the end, which was really cool. But yeah, I really like Kansas (Speedway), you can run all over the track and try to find grip and speed. Hoping for another good result there this weekend.”
Your oval progression is certainly improving. What have you done and focused on to continue your oval progress?
“It’s really just time. Every race I’m learning something new and trying to keep good notes. I try to have a good notebook of set up stuff too. Even though we have a new body and rule set, the set-up advancements that we have made for my style of racing, have certainly translated this year. It’s time and experience, going back to these tracks now for my third and fourth races there, kind of makes the difference. I know what to expect, how to approach the weekend, and how the track is going to change. All of that stuff just adds up.”
Chevrolet NASCAR Cup Series Statistics
Manufacturer Championships:
Total (1949-2025): 44
First title for Chevrolet: 1958
Highest number of consecutive titles: 13 (2003-15)
Most recent: 2025
Years Won: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
Driver Championships:
Total (1949-2025): 34
First Chevrolet champion: Buck Baker (1957)
Highest number of consecutive titles: 7 (2005-11)
Most recent: Kyle Larson (2025)
Driver and Manufacturer Championship Sweeps: 29
Years Won: 1957, 1960, 1961, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2020, 2021, 2025
Event Victories:
Record for total race wins in single season: 26 (2007)
2026 STATISTICS:
Wins: 1
Poles: 1
Laps Led: 655
Top-Fives: 14
Top-10s: 25
Stage Wins: 4
CHEVROLET IN NASCAR CUMULATIVE STATISTICS:
Total Chevrolet race wins: 882 (1949 to date)
Poles won to date: 767
Laps led to date: 257,389
Top-fives to date: 4,450
Top-10s to date: 9,176
Total NASCAR Cup Wins by Corporation, 1949 to Date:
General Motors: 1,216
Chevrolet: 882
Pontiac: 154
Oldsmobile: 115
Buick: 65
Ford: 848
Ford: 748
Mercury: 96
Lincoln: 4
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles: 467
Dodge: 217
Plymouth: 191
Chrysler: 59
Toyota: 209
About General Motors
General Motors (NYSE:GM) is driving the future of transportation, leveraging advanced technology to build safer, smarter, and lower emission cars, trucks, and SUVs. GM’s Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands offer a broad portfolio of innovative gasoline-powered vehicles and the industry’s widest range of EVs, as we move to an all-electric future.
GM Motorsports, including the Cadillac Formula 1® Team develops and proves advanced technologies in the most demanding environments, accelerating innovation in performance, safety, efficiency, and electrification for its production vehicles. Cadillac Racing is one of the leading manufacturers in the IMSA and FIA World Endurance Championships (WEC). Chevrolet competes in single seaters in the US IndyCar series, and in NASCAR with multiple team partners and drivers. Corvette customer teams compete in GT series across the globe including IMSA and WEC. Learn more at GM.com.
